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00:01the pioneering tracks that sparked off a revolution this was the world's first
00:08intercity railway this was about doing things like never before one man was determined to
00:15change the course of history stevenson was a robust character he was the man they needed
00:22to get the job done construction of tracks across an impossible landscape nobody thought
00:29you could build a railway on marshland why would you how could stevenson overcome the countless
00:36obstacles in his way this was really some of the first large-scale engineering work that had been
00:43done since roman times and a tragic death on the tracks whilst the world watches shock horror
00:51suddenly the railways were proven in so you guys to be the evil thing this is the hidden history
00:58of the modern railway line from liverpool to manchester in this series we explore some of
01:08the greatest railways in the world and the secrets surrounding them from the ancient hills of europe
01:16to the wastes of the yukon valley in north america their dark and forgotten pasts have left their mark
01:25on history
01:41the liverpool to manchester railway is nothing less than the world's first intercity railway it's something
01:48we take for granted today but this was the first one it was here that the testing ground the proving
01:58ground so many ideas was made it was a template for so much else and we exported it across the
02:04entire
02:04world and changed the world forever thanks to the liverpool and manchester line time became unified and
02:12without that happening the modern world simply couldn't exist the way it does today could argue that the
02:18whole world really is a branch line of the liverpool and manchester railway the first main line railway in the
02:25world between two of the finest cities in the world
02:34although this 31 mile line may not look like much it started a global revolution but from the very start
02:43there were massive problems
02:47at this point in time railway travel is like space travel today nowhere in the world has a railway system
02:55so the liverpool to manchester idea this is this is crazy the railway was as revolutionary a piece of
03:02transportation as we see the self-driving car today are we going to crash are we going to have accidents
03:07and
03:08people felt as nervous about the railways they thought that if you went over 30 miles an hour that
03:15you would suffocate before the railway was developed all the naysayers were saying oh it'll destroy the
03:21countryside it'll poison the birds it will never work you had the fact that people had all these myths and
03:28fears women could miscarry birds would fall dead from the sky cows would stop milking and because
03:36trains would replace horses the horse would become extinct there were very split opinions about
03:42the viability of railways people really weren't sure that they were safe for people to use
03:50but the future of modern railway hinges on one event that would decide the course of history
03:58for locomotives it was almost their last chance they had to prove that their way was the best way
04:09this is where the railways as we know them were born
04:16this is the place for the modern railway as we understand it
04:24this is in fact wren hill where the wren hill trials were held in october of 1829
04:32the rain hill trials were designed to see which machines had what it takes to run on the world's
04:38first intercity railway i so wish i could have been at the rain hill trials and i think probably
04:45every engineer on the planet does as well the future of locomotion of the railways was actually in the
04:52balance imagine you're a person 1820s the fastest thing you've ever seen on land is probably a horse
04:59one of those who are scalloping along 10 000 to 12 000 spectators gathered from across the world
05:07to come and see these great mechanical beasts these iron horses effectively battle it out to become
05:13the fastest things on earth
05:25but powerful forces were working against the idea of public railways from the start
05:32at the beginning of the 19th century two cities maintained britain's heavyweight status on the global
05:38stage liverpool and manchester of course britain was at the very heart of the industrial revolution
05:49the industrial revolution had been pioneered in britain little britain had the huge navy and
05:54controlled most of the world's international trade so we were really at the cutting edge of the whole
06:01industrialization of the modern world
06:06the port of liverpool once made rich from trading slaves now stayed rich by importing slave-picked
06:13cotton from america so you've got all kinds of goods coming through liverpool but particularly
06:19lots of raw cotton and it needs to come to manchester to be processed so the northwest of england had
06:25really
06:25taken off as a textile center for the globe but there was a fundamental problem with the system
06:33often it would take as long to get goods the 34 odd miles between these two cities as it would
06:40to get them across the atlantic
06:45but what made the journey so slow between these two northern cities railway historian anthony dawson knows the details
06:56this is the castle field area of manchester and this is the 18th century commercial heart
07:01of the city this is where the duke of bridgewater's canal came into manchester this is the m62 of its
07:07day
07:07carrying bulk freight from liverpool to manchester and back again the canal companies had a monopoly
07:14on this trade they could charge what they wanted and the service was appalling it was very slow
07:21so if you were carrying something like milk or butter it would have gone rancid by the time you
07:26got to the destination they had to build something faster and better than the canal but what this
07:33could be was far from clear in the 1820s the only railways were short lines used to carry raw materials
07:47some pulled by horses others by engines that were perceived as dirty and polluting
07:54the railways were seen as terrifying machines these fire breathing devils of course before this
08:00all locomotion had really been horses pulling canal boats people traveling on horses these are natural
08:07organic things steam engines were not natural but northern engineer george stevenson had seen what they
08:15could do and is prepared to fight for these ill-famed machines but did he have what it takes to
08:22change
08:22the course of history he wasn't an educated man he was self-taught he'd been around engineering he'd
08:29been around machinery and he just instinctively understood how these things worked
08:35in order to build a railway parliament had to pass a bill to approve it
08:41so stevenson worked with surveyors on a potential route for the line the surveyors set out to try and
08:49work out the best route between liverpool and manchester if they get the right route the railway is going to
08:53happen if they get the wrong route it could cost thousands and thousands of pounds more and the
09:00enterprise could ultimately fail stevenson was called to parliament to justify his route
09:08but it didn't go to plan you have people in parliament as well who looked down on people
09:14like stevenson with his northumbrian accent and his northern ways they thought this wasn't the way to be
09:20a scientist this wasn't the way to engineer he must be a fraud
09:26in fact stevenson had been working away on a coal railway elsewhere and his team's survey of the route contained
09:34errors parliament ripped it to shreds and george under cross-examination fell to pieces his survey
09:44was pulled apart it was discovered that his bridge at eccles would have been under water imagine that
09:52one of the greatest minds of the age was laughed out of the place it was deeply embarrassing for george
09:59it was deeply embarrassing for the company but why was it so hard for stevenson's team
10:05to put together an accurate survey one of the reasons why stevenson's survey was so bad
10:11was because they hadn't had permission to actually carry out their survey and where they had to go
10:17through people's private properties they had dogs set on them they had guns fired over them and even local
10:23tenants around with clubs and sticks to chase the surveyors off the line they the aristocracy did
10:29everything they could to stop george from building his railway landowners didn't want a railway invading
10:38their private land and the fact is the liverpool to manchester railway faced powerful opposition in parliament
10:47there were those landowners and those parliamentarians who despised the idea of the lower working class
10:53as becoming mobile there was thought they could cause riots and more importantly you actually have
10:58the canal owners who feared a railway coming in and taking away all of their money against all this
11:06opposition george stevenson had a very strong vision he wasn't perturbed by it and he pushed forward
11:12certain that railway was the future in the end parliament rejected the bill would stevenson be
11:25able to make his railway a reality this turning point in history as we now know it you know what
11:33could have happened would you had a greater ship canal would we have had it widened earlier would we
11:38have had more steam power on canals would ship power have been developed as an alternative much
11:43faster who knows it really was a turning point
11:55to have a chance of getting the bill through parliament an alternative route had to be found
12:00for the liverpool to manchester railway one that could be approved by the landowners
12:13that was slightly north of the route that we are now following along between the two cities because
12:22it was determined by the characteristics the geology of liverpool liverpool docks obviously at sea level
12:29but just in from that sea level you've got a barrier
12:36the higher ground outside liverpool was bypassed by stevenson's original route which traveled north
12:43from the docks before turning east to manchester but the route was changed to avoid landowners property
12:50and the bill was finally passed into law in 1826 however this new route crossed some impossible geography
13:01everyone knows the ideal way for a railway is from a to b in a straight line on a flat
13:06surface
13:07but liverpool to manchester didn't have that luxury the first challenge was that this new route now had to
13:14stop at edge hill 123 feet above sea level when they got to liverpool they were at high ground
13:24not the level of the docks that was the major problem that they had to resolve
13:36but how could stevenson overcome this seemingly impossible task paul o'donnell from the liverpool
13:44to manchester railway trust knows just how he faced the challenge where we're heading
13:51is a place so secret very few people know of its existence i say because for me this is one
14:00of the
14:00most important places in world history in order to decrease the gradient stevenson decided to dig a
14:08more gradual route down through the sandstone rock to the docks we're in the whopping tunnel
14:16that's one of these dark secretive places there because it's been sort of left here and forgotten for
14:23so many years myths to arise they had to tunnel nearly one and a half miles through sandstone beneath
14:31the city streets down to the dock at whopping it was a massive undertaking everything was done by hand
14:37with pickaxes shovels and blasting powder the work was done by laborers known as navvies who lived in
14:49camps along the line they worked long hours and in really intolerable conditions and health and safety
14:57you can forget about it people died on this job heavy workers and heavy drinkers and heavy fighters but
15:04they could really shift the stonework so they could move like a couple of cubic tons a day stories that
15:10they'd bleed from their eyes with the amount of work they were doing is not unheard of excavating
15:17underground the navvies could see only by candlelight and the work was fraught with dangers
15:24at a 30-foot cave-in and there was a big botanical gardens above it at the time it was
15:30dangerous and
15:31very dark work to construct this mammoth tunnel whilst workers excavated from each end eight shafts
15:44were also dug down from above all aiming to connect up and when they all met up they met up
15:51perfectly
15:52there's no computers there's no gps and it was perfect within an inch on each section the quality
15:58engineering is inspiring
16:05although too steep for locomotives stationary steam engines could now take goods up and down to the
16:11docks using an endless rope system
16:16at 1.2 miles it was the longest railway tunnel in the world at the time and a huge engineering
16:22achievement
16:23in itself but the path ahead was still far from smooth
16:34just west of manchester as a train passes is an inexplicable sight why is the track wobbling
16:47much of the northwest in the 1800s was made up of wet moss lands a marshy terrain dating back around
16:5410 000 years
16:58one section chat moss lies directly on the route between the two cities
17:04and posed a huge challenge to the construction of a railway line
17:09a huge expanse of bog just to the west of manchester in parts at least 30 foot deep
17:15and it was said where man and horse fair to tread for fear of drowning in the quicksand
17:20it's just this boggy nasty marshland that spreads on for far too long
17:27how could stevenson ever dream of running a multi-ton locomotive over the top of a sinking bog
17:36at risley moss ranger mark cousins is an expert on this landscape
17:42so this location here you can see possibly we can walk across this wouldn't cause us too many
17:49difficulties to build on still looks as if oh it's not too bad a bit spongy still okay to go
17:55and then
17:56all of a sudden you hit an area and you'll start to sink deeper and deeper and deeper
18:07peat bogs are unstable marshy landscapes covered with a layer of vegetation
18:13it's formed sphagnum mosses cotton grasses sphagnum moss in itself can hold vast amounts of water
18:22as i can display with this here you can see there doesn't look much like a giant sponge constantly
18:31growing and growing taking in carbon fantastic carbon sink but underneath to try and build on it not so good
18:42once broken this spongy layer gives way to a peaty quagmire of dead plant material
18:49you couldn't walk on it because you'd you'd sink up to your armpits in it sort of thing and and
18:53it
18:53was most unpleasant now how do you build a railway across a moss that was the major problem that they
19:00had to resolve
19:04stevenson initially tried to stabilize the boggy area with harder material
19:09piling in loads and loads of ballast and stone and sand but there were some bits which was so
19:16boggy it was almost impossible to cross
19:19the pressure was really on poor old george the work to cross chat moss had taken far longer than
19:25anticipated in fact the body directors were getting increasingly anxious about the work
19:40so what they said is you have to float it across chat moss and the way to float it is
19:47in fact to
19:47take her trees and to lay them into a kind of grid which formed a kind of matting
19:54he made a sort of springy mattress out of branches and brushwood and used that to then support
20:03all of the infill you literally floated the iron railway across the marsh
20:13stevenson had found an effective way to drain and cross chat moss
20:20in order to prove his critics wrong on new year's day 1830 george stevenson took the train of
20:31carriages with passengers in across chat moss and proved triumphantly that a railway could be built
20:37over that bog
20:41and the same track is still floating today
20:46if you were to go to the side of the track and stand there as a train comes past you
20:51can
20:51feel a gentle bow wave as the force of the train passes you you just feel it rising and falling
20:58an absolutely ingenious method even today when we try and work on peat bugs with diggers
21:03they sink quite easily way back when thinking how to get this railway across here creating those rafts
21:10absolutely amazing
21:15against the odds and the naysayers stevenson had found a way to conquer nature
21:21but there was another nasty surprise waiting along the route
21:26he's tunneled under liverpool he's bridged chat moss now he had the sankee valley
21:35the altered route had to cross the 68 feet deep sankee valley and the sankee canal
21:42how could they build a railway over this great expanse
21:47so to get the train from one level across the valley at the same level they had to find a
21:52solution
21:53and the solution they had was a massive viaduct
22:00now this is the the sankee viaduct which was built to carry the liverpool and manchester railway in 1830
22:07over the sankee canal you might think these arches are rather high but in fact there used to be barges
22:15with sails traveling along here so the it had to be built a sufficient height to accommodate those
22:21and it was a tremendous engineering achievement
22:27the sankee viaduct was one of the most expensive structures on the whole line
22:33and with nine arches was the biggest of its kind ever seen at the time
22:38the architecture of this railway was designed to impress
22:44it was a way of the railway company expressing its power
22:48its wealth as well as its substance they were saying we are here and we are here to stay
23:00george stevenson had achieved the impossible
23:04today if you build a railway you have a whole team of experts behind you and you have a century
23:11of information but for stevenson this was the first in the world there are no other experts to turn to
23:18and actually he had to be a politician an engineer and a manager it's a lot to ask of someone
23:25to combine
23:25all of those specialist roles but he did it and he forced the railway through
23:34but there was a pressing issue threatening to kill stevenson's dream for good
23:40it may seem incredible but with construction well underway no one even knew what would run on these tracks
23:50looking back at it now it's obvious right you choose steam locomotives to haul trains along a railway
23:56but that wasn't the accepted idea of the time existing locomotives were seen as unreliable
24:03and an unknown quantity they were clanky they were noisy they were dirty and they kept breaking down
24:11it's what everybody feared about them obvious solution at the time was to use stationary engines
24:17they were proving technology they were simple stationary steam engines hauled carriages along
24:25by a single continuously moving rope but this limited their speed and efficiency
24:32but the director had cautiously voted in favor of the tried and tested technology
24:37george stevens were absolutely furious with this decision and he feared that the liverpool and
24:44manchester railway would be strangled by ropes one of these stationary engines fail you've lost the
24:52whole line if the locomotive fails you lose one train stevens said that locomotives are worthy of a fight
25:00and they will not be cowardly given of them to settle the matter once and for all the directors came
25:07up
25:07with an unusual solution let's have a trial to see if the railway engine can be improved
25:14and is it as good or is it better than a stationary engine
25:26the trial was held on a flat stretch of track at rain hill nine miles from liverpool
25:33entrance had to prove the engines could carry a load of 20 tons at the speed of 10 miles per
25:38hour
25:38for the equivalent of the distance between the two cities
25:43open to amateur and engineer alike the directors received all sorts of crackpot ideas
25:54multi-farious schemes were proposed locomotives where the friction was reduced to nothing where they
26:00could pull trains with a silken thread using perpetual motion using columns of hydrogen and water or mercury
26:08some of these schemes absolutely ludicrous
26:11one of them wasn't really an engine it was a horse on a treadmill connected to wheels
26:16but the chap who made that was actually on the board of the company
26:26stevenson was determined to prove the power of the locomotive but with george busy on the line's
26:32construction it was his son robert and company treasurer henry booth who produced an engine for the trials
26:39named rocket but it had stiff competition
26:44three other steam locomotives had made it to the actual trials perseverance sans paris and novelty
26:53the favorite with the crowd as it resembled a familiar fire engine
26:59the rain hill trials were a pivotal moment in modern history really but disaster struck before the race could
27:07even begin perseverance when it was carried up it got dropped and severely damaged so that basically
27:15left three engines for the trials there's a real war of attrition over the course of the trials three
27:22judges were watching from the sidelines to see which engine had what it takes
27:29first of all novelty's doing it to run first time out the bellows burst then the water pump went wrong
27:37finally she disappeared with a loud bang and a cloud of smoke a joint had come undone and she was
27:42done
27:42finished a complete write-off then hands pry is going it had problems it's two cylinder pistons one of them
27:51cracked which meant that steam went through the cylinder straight up the chimney drawing all the
27:57fire with it so it's throwing out sparks and cinders as she moved
28:03when it was rocket's turn to perform it reached just over 24 miles per hour exceeding all expectations
28:12rocket had won the rental trials absolutely beaten the competitors stevenson must have been absolutely
28:20ecstatic and as at the end of a grand national race the spectators must have been cheering and
28:26applauding as rocket steam triumphantly passed them on a final run back towards the bridge
28:34knowing that rocket had entered the history box
28:40reaching a heady 35 miles per hour on a celebratory run rocket proved once and for all
28:47that steam locomotion was the way forward for the modern railway
28:54was a real turning point in the railways and the fact that the locomotive could be seen as reliable and
29:01it could do the job stevenson was vindicated and came away in triumph
29:08but how did rocket beat competition from all over the country what was the secret to its success
29:15the national railway museum has two replicas of rocket curator bob guinn knows what gave this little
29:23yellow engine the edge we start off with a water jacket firebox here it's burning coke and then all the
29:31way around it is water and that's getting boiled up to heat and then we come to here and there's
29:37a
29:38multi-tubular boiler now this was the heart of it this was a real fabulous secret for this machine because
29:43most of the other machines in the competition at rain hill they didn't have this
29:50while most of its competitors had just one flu taking hot gases from the fire through to boil the water
29:57rocket's multi-tube boiler has 25 giving it much more steam engineer simon holroyd is doing an overhaul
30:06on one of the replicas locomotives that didn't have this arrangement had to stop they'd get so far
30:15they'd run out of steam they'd have to stop while the fire heated this water up again so they had
30:18steam
30:19and then they could continue whereas rocket because of this this fabulous connection would just keep going
30:25the other secret of this is instead of sending the steam up to the cylinders and once it's done its
30:30work to drive the wheels just exhausting it on the ground frightening the horses and people no you
30:35with this you can send the steam up the chimney and this is called the blast pipe and what it
30:40helps is
30:41it helps draw the fire it's a bit like putting a newspaper over a domestic hearth helps draw the fire
30:47and make it even stronger in heat terms within the boiler which gives you even more steam so it's a
30:52completely
30:53virtual circle designed to defy the negative stereotypes rocket consumed its own smoke was more reliable
31:02and more powerful than any engine in history
31:08so it was a world beater and actually it lays the template for all steam locomotives worldwide
31:16the grand opening day of the much-awaited liverpool to manchester railway approached and everything
31:23had to go perfectly to show the world the brilliance of this british engineering triumph but no one could
31:31have anticipated the tragic accident about to happen opening day 15th september 1830 we've got the prime
31:41minister who's also the hero of waterloo the duke of wellington the ambassador from russia the ambassador
31:46from austria we've got the consul from america several mps they're all here
31:54and expectations were incredibly high unfortunately on the day things didn't quite go as planned
32:04improvements to the engine's design were being made at a terrific pace
32:09and stevenson himself was aboard a new northambrian engine but rocket was still there for the occasion
32:17there's hundreds of thousands of people stood out they are on every bridge if they can see the line
32:22there are people 3d watching you a cannon goes out and they were off
32:31the trains were hurtling along the track but they had to stop to take on more water along the way
32:38traveling at around 22 miles per hour there should have been no danger but passengers weren't used to
32:44machines moving at this pace they had been given instructions for their safety they were told before
32:51they all started don't get out as soon as the train stops they all get out the train stopped on
32:58the south
32:58track for water and mp william huskison took the opportunity to walk up to the prime minister's
33:04carriage to greet it then next minute rocket is coming up the track on the north rail and everyone
33:14notice it there's lots of people milling about and the cry goes out train coming now there's no brakes
33:22on the engine there's brakes on the carriages for what they're worth but the only way to stop rocket
33:27is to put it into reverse huskison panicked as rocket hurtled down the track towards him but of
33:34course he also had no concept of speed or what these machines were people say get out of the
33:39way get out the way or get in get in and he did this a bit and he twice crossed
33:45the line and then
33:46recrossed it he stopped he panicked he turned around he came back again and basically anything wrong
33:52he could have done he did wrong rocket was bearing down on him and in some desperation he grabbed
33:58hold of the door of the duke's carriage and it swung open leaving him hanging and he falls across the
34:05track and actually the engine runs across his leg and he then sadly died that very evening
34:15the tragic and poignant aspect to huskison's story is that he'd been the mp who championed the railways
34:22and yet on the glorious day when they launched he was the one who died on the railway that day
34:31at the railway's crucial hour the world watched in horror as rocket took an mp's life in a gruesome
34:38death on its tracks news of the first public railway casualty spread far and wide shock horror
34:48huskison was dead you know suddenly the railways were proven in so many people's eyes to be the evil
34:55thing huskinson's death was front page news and there's really no such thing as bad publicity
35:00it made the railway famous in a horribly ghoulish kind of way
35:08but once the service started an unexpected turn of events took place
35:15initially the railway was designed for freight but suddenly people started to realize you could take
35:21people and the demand for that went through the roof there's a demand by people to say well look if
35:28a
35:29piece of goods could go along it why can't i go along it and visit my auntie in manchester and
35:34indeed
35:34why not and the railway realized very early on this railway was going to make its money not from freight
35:40but
35:41from people tucked away in the heart of manchester one place is particularly important to the history of
35:51the liverpool to manchester railway erin beeston is a researcher at manchester's museum of science and
35:58industry this is liverpool road station it's the oldest railway station in the world it was the
36:06manchester terminus of liverpool and manchester railway
36:12trains of goods would arrive into this multi-story warehouse where gravity hoists could move them up
36:18and down the building before being loaded onto carts to be moved around manchester
36:26on the opposite side of the tracks was the passenger station
36:34so this is the first class ticket office for liverpool road station there was about four times as
36:40many passengers than they expected in the first three months about a thousand passengers a day traveled
36:45through the station cheaper faster and safer than stagecoaches it was a whole new experience for the first passengers
36:56so these are the kind of carriages that people would have been on if you're first class well padded
37:01comfortable glazed and so on if you're in the second class well i'm sorry you might be able to sit
37:08down
37:08if you're lucky but fundamentally you're going to get very wet and very cold many disgruntled passengers
37:14refer to these blue boxes or rattlers as being traveling pneumonia wagons traveling at such speed behind a
37:23locomotive meant that you'd get all kinds of smells you'd get the steam you'd get dirt you were exposed to
37:30the elements
37:32you could be in this carriage and hot coals would come drifting down
37:36in the smoke if you weren't careful it might set your hair on fire it was an interesting experience to
37:41travel to
37:42limper manchester but it was an exciting experience for the first passengers
37:50what was once thought impossible had now become a reality the famous phrase of this period was
37:58an annihilation of space and time what they were saying was that actually the railway shrank space it
38:04meant that places were much closer together the stories of a man who was seen trading in manchester
38:12at one o'clock went to liverpool did business came back and he was at church in the evening
38:16so all these stories of my god the speed of this
38:22it starts an actual social revolution as well because you're able to travel
38:26you're able to meet different people you know the the gene pool changes it's it's a major revolution
38:33the liverpool to manchester railway transformed the way we live
38:38it allowed people to travel in a way they never had done before it improved people's diets
38:43it created connections that were never there before but for me the most extraordinary thing
38:48is it changed our concept of time
38:52but how did a railway that opened in 1830 affect our timekeeping today
39:01time is a function of geography and longitude so before standard time was invented
39:07everywhere had its own time and that was perfectly logical but the idea of trying to run a railway
39:14with departure and arrival times when every destination was on its own time was utter chaos
39:20so it was very complicated and certainly henry booth who was the company secretary and treasurer
39:26of the liverpool and manchester railway made a plea in the 1840s to try and introduce some sort of standard
39:32time
39:35even though booth booth was unsuccessful parliament eventually came back to his idea in 1880 gmt was
39:42officially rolled out across the country and britain was brought under one time zone
39:50GMT being adopted later on meant that suddenly time became important.
40:01One legacy of the Liverpool to Manchester line is being kept alive by a group of volunteers in Manchester's Museum
40:08of Science and Industry.
40:12Although Rocket started the speed revolution, improvements quickly led to the Planet-class locomotive.
40:19Bigger, faster and stronger than anything before.
40:24Ian Hardman is one of the firemen working on this replica.
40:28So, obviously this is Planet. Planet is one of the sisters of Rocket.
40:34It was the pinnacle of steam, you know, brand new, fresh out of the box and everybody wanted to have
40:41a go with this really.
40:43Completed in 1992, this replica still runs today.
40:49It's got character. It's raw.
40:51This is built with, you know, wooden struts, steel and it's a lot more bare bone if you like.
40:58They built this up as a replica in memory of the first railway so people could visit and see that
41:05steam is alive.
41:06And this is where it all began.
41:17It all goes back to the pioneering Liverpool to Manchester Railway.
41:23Between them, the Stephensons had created the fastest machine on Earth and the longest railway line over impossible terrain.
41:33I think really one of the true heroes of this story is George D. Evenison.
41:37He was the man that created this railway.
41:40He's the man that kind of provided the impetus for locomotion.
41:43He's the man, really, we can say, with all honesty, is the father of railways.
41:51Despite all the myths, fears and challenges, the railway was a huge success.
41:58And soon, Britain was leading the way across the world.
42:03The British were the pioneers of the railway.
42:07You know, we had the technology, the know-how, the ingenuity, the raw genius that you need.
42:14We were the world leader.
42:17The legacy of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway is truly global.
42:22Within 25 years of it opening, there were railways on every continent on Earth, apart from at the two poles.
42:31It's the short, 31-mile railway that changed the course of history.
42:39It's the fact that it's shaped the country, it's shaped the world.
42:42You know, it went from this first 30 miles of line.
42:46By the start of the 20th century, we had 30,000 miles of line.
42:50And it's just, it's just inspiring that this started here.
42:55It's affected almost every aspect of our life.
42:58It's not just this country.
43:00When it was developed, people recognised the importance of it.
43:04They said it was actually more important than the invention of printing.
43:08It was more important than the discovery of America.
43:11And that's this, this spot.
43:15Railways transformed the world in the same way as the jet engine would transform the world after the Second World
43:22War.
43:22Suddenly, people were brought closer together.
43:25And when you bring people closer together, you get a greater sense of nationhood.
43:31It is an incredible achievement.
43:33And the whole of the rest of the world is effectively a branch line, just a series of railways leading
43:39off that Manchester to Liverpool line.
43:51To be continued...
43:53To be continued...
44:05To be continued...
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